Now, a grass species named after Gaekwad III

VADODARA: The next time you pass from Bhayli village in the outskirts of the city, make sure to stop by and look for a unique species of grass. For, this grass has been named after Baroda state`s erstwhile ruler Sayajirao Gaekwad III. The grass named as `Ischaemum Sayajiraoi` was discovered by a student and reader of botany department of M S University.
Rinku Desai and her guide Dr Vinay Ravle discovered the grass at Bhayli during their research on various species of grass in south Gujarat. "This species of grass has been found for the very first time in the world and its leaves and flowers are different from the others," Ravle, who has also taken help of Holland-based J F VeldKamp for the study, said.
When asked why the grass was named after Sayajirao, Ravle said, "Sayajirao played a big role in developing this city and even our university, where I did my PhD has been named after him. So we thought of naming this new species of grass after him. As such the finder of any new species can name it and register it after anyone he or she likes," Ravle added.
The study was being carried out for the last three years and they came across this unique grass species in 2009. The grass` leaves are furry and have flowers. "The height of this grass species is also unusually different. So, we did a comparative study on the grass species available with us," Ravle said.
The new species has already been registered with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London and International Plant Nomenclatural Index (IPNI), home to over 11 lakh species of plants and grass from across the world.
IPNI is the result of a collaboration between The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Index Kewensis), The Harvard University Herbaria (Gray Herbarium Index) and the Australian National Herbarium (APNI).
The IPNI database is a collection of the names registered by the three cooperating institutions and they work towards standardizing the information.